Fresh Start

Some find a blank page daunting. Where do you start? What do you say? Something. Anything. Just begin at the beginning and who knows where you'll end up. That's not important anyway. Just that you enjoyed the journey. So start somewhere...but start.

My mood will probably show the way. Sometimes funny. Sometimes serious. Sometimes thought provoking...but probably mostly ordinary. I think I lead a rather ordinary life, but what do I know, it's not like I'm looking in a mirror, so from outside, it probably looks different.

I was in a meeting with a group of people just getting their brand new Franklin planners. I knew the gal leading the meeting. She and I had worked together before in another place before we got promoted to business suits and brief cases. She told us to make long term goals. Things we would like to achieve somewhere down the line.

I thought about doing a long distance bike race. I liked the idea of having a goal that I would work toward. Having to take small steps to start, but increasingly bigger ones until I had accomplished the distance. Yeah...write that down.

Then I thought about me. How could I be a better person? What did I need to do to be the kind of person that I would like to be. I know...I want to learn to be kind. I wish that I were nicer to people...more thoughtful...less worried about me and mine...and more willing to take the time to be helpful.

It was her first meeting. I could tell that she was a bit new at this. She smiled at me, glad to have a familar face in a room of strangers. "Mary, it looks like you have a couple of things written down. Would you care to share them with us?"

Another time, I might have begged off, but I could tell that she was asking for my help, so I shared. "Well, I would like to do a long distance bike ride someday." That brought several looks of admiration mixed with surprise. "And...I would like to learn to be kind. I don't think that I am very kind. I'm much to competitive and impatient. I think I need to change that."

I wish you could have seen the look on her face. Such a beautiful girl, even with her mouth wide open and her eyes like saucers! "You have got to be kidding. You can't possibly mean that."

"Oh, but I do. Seriously. I really need to be kinder." I am almost in tears now. This is a hard thing to admit to yourself, much less to a room full of other people."

"How many people here know Mary?", she aksed the room. More than half raised their hands.

"And how many people here would describe Mary as being kind?" Even more hands.

Big surprise. Maybe I have them fooled....or maybe I just don't see what they see. Hard to tell.

Then fast forward more years than I want to own up to. I am on the phone with my daughter. I will getting company next month and the house needs to be cleaned. I need help, but am not willing to ask.

"I'll come this weekend to help you clean", she says. She is giving up her precious time off to come and help me do something I know she despises.

"Are you sure?" I ask nicely, holding my breath, hoping she won't change her mind.

"Of course", she says.

In tears, I reply, "Thank you. That is so thoughtful of you...so kind."

"I know"... she says..."I got it from my mother."